Meeting their pandemic needs

Federal employees give their agencies high marks for meeting their pandemic needs

A new report shows that federal employers largely supported the mental and physical well-being of workers.

By MYAH WARD

The majority of federal leaders met the challenges posed by the Covid pandemic this past year by fulfilling their workers’ needs during the uncertain time, according to new data.

Federal agencies scored 86.1 out of 100 in the federal government category that examined workers’ views on how employers supported them during the pandemic, as well as their agency’s ability to deliver on its mission, according to the annual "Best Places to Work" report from the nonpartisan, nonprofit Partnership for Public Service and global management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group.

As Covid spread across the country in March of last year, offices across the U.S. shuttered and many employees began remote work — sparking concern that productivity levels would go down.

But federal employers appeared to respond well by supporting the mental and physical well-being of workers, providing necessary resources, finding new ways to deliver public services, and effectively communicating with employees, the report shows.

The overall government-wide employee engagement score was 69 points out of 100, falling short of private sector employee engagement rated at 77. The private sector data came from the employee research firm, Mercer, and included more than 8 million survey responses collected from 2016 to 2020 from a myriad of businesses.

Just 22 of the government’s 71 agencies scored above the private sector, including NASA, the Government Accountability Office and the Peace Corps.

Federal agencies did outperform the private sector in other categories. While 84.1 percent of federal employees said coworkers cooperate to get their jobs done, only 78 percent said so in the private sector. And 67 percent of federal employees were satisfied with their pay, compared with 54 percent in the private sector.

NASA earned the top spot for “Best Places to Work” in the large agency category for the ninth consecutive year. It was followed by the Intelligence Community, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Commerce.

The Government Accountability Office took the top slot for midsize agencies and the Congressional Budget Office was the top-ranked small agency in 2020. The Office of Inspector General ranked No. 1 in agency subcomponents.

Other agencies dropped in rankings this year. HHS — an agency under stress in 2020 — dropped from second place in 2019 to fourth in 2020, for example. Two other agencies on the frontlines of the Covid pandemic, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saw different employee experiences in 2020. NIH maintained a consistent ranking, with a “Best Places to Work” score of 81.7 out of 100, and it placed No. 63 out of 411 for agency subcomponents. The CDC scored 72.4 and dropped from 81 in 2019 to 192 in 2020.

Most of the data was collected from the Office of Personnel Management’s annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, which was administered from Sept. 14 to Nov. 5, 2020, to executive branch employees. Other survey data was collected from 12 agencies, as well as responses from employees at U.S. intelligence agencies. This is the 15th annual report, but due to changes to the 2020 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey and the organization’s methodology, the 2020 data isn't totally comparable to previous years.